Sunday, October 01, 2006

After spending more than the usual amount of time sitting around doing nothing this morning and into the early afternoon I finally got motivated enough to head out into the world to have lunch and to make a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond.I’ve been slowly chipping away at the whole organizational thing, and today’s effort involved picking up some sliding wire rack shelving dealies for my cabinets.Once there I decided that, like most things there, the sliding wire rack shelving dealies they had were mostly too expensive, though I did pick up one for storing pot and pan lids. Finding a place for my lids has been the biggest headache, so it came in handy.I also bought a door wedge to keep my bedroom door open, as it tends to slam shut if there’s a strong breeze when the window is open.I figured the wedge would be at least slightly more visually appealing that the bunched up old pair of swim trunks that I had jammed under the door.Once I got home and opened the package, I slid the wedge under the door.All the way under the door.It went right through without ever touching the bottom of the door.After a period of trial and error, however, I found a point in which the gap between the door and the carpet was smaller than the wedge and was able to toss the trunks.On my drive out to BB&B I found myself stuck behind slow-moving traffic and not feeling like engaging in the eternal and pointless struggle, I sighed, gritted my teeth, and resigned myself to it, as that seemed to be the way traffic was flowing.However, after a few minutes of crawling along I noticed that there wasn’t really any traffic beyond the Audi in front of me. The nearest car ahead of it was way the hell down the road.So I said, “Screw this,” hopped into the other lane, and left the Audi far behind me.Eventually, even at its snail’s pace, the Audi caught back up to me at the next red light, though once the light turned green it again receded far into the distance.I went merrily (for me) on my way, not giving the Audi another thought. In fact, there was another car on the road that had caught my attention.I’m not much of a car person (Actually, the more accurate statement is that I’m not much of a “fill in the blank” person. Not a dog/cat/bird person, not a morning person, not a night person, etc. In fact, it’s probably easiest to just say I’m not a “person.”), but I do appreciate the look of certain cars, and among the cars I appreciate the look of are vintage Corvettes, such as the 1959 Vette I saw today.Didn’t care for the color (a sort of teal), but it was very well-maintained.In any case, as I was driving along and sparing the Vette a glance, I noticed that the Audi, which had been chugging along behind me at a grandmotherly pace, was gunning it over in the far lane and suddenly zipping in and out of traffic in a way that was actually pretty reckless.I’m not sure what was up with the transformation. Maybe the drive was bipolar and the manic stage just kicked it.On my way back home I was reminded of the fact that not matter how shitty traffic is there’s always someone who’s willing to go out of his way to make it shittier.As I was in light at a red light I was delayed by some jackass who had gotten into a right turn only lane and realized that he didn’t want to turn and awkwardly tried to get back into the left lane, causing a slowdown when the light turned green as he straightened his car out and finally got the ass end out of the right lane.A bit down the road as I turned into my exit’s lane he cut me off, then brought me to a halt right at the exit as once again he realized that he was in the wrong fucking lane and needed to try to get back into the other lane.*Sigh*The other day my phone rang and after the usual bafflement that the sound of my phone ringing when I know my mother isn’t calling me, I answered it to discover that it was “Sprint now together with Nextel” trying to “reward me” for being a “valued customer” by bothering me home to offer to sell me something. Gee, thanks Sprint now together with Nextel!The girl powered through her script before I could cut her off, explaining that I was eligible to buy another phone at an extremely low cost so that I could share it with someone.When she paused to take a breath I said, “I have absolutely no one that I would need to share a phone with.”That put an end to her spiel, but it occurred to me that I should have continued on, saying something like, “And thank you very much for the reminder. I just love having people call me up at home to draw attention to the fact that I’m a lonely, loveless loser who not only has no one to share a phone with, but has no one to share anything with. Yeah, I need the phone calls because it’s not like I’m reminded of that fact by every movie, TV show, and fucking commercial that I see! So thanks, Sprint now together with Nextel, thanks a lot!”Brian suggested a different tack, saying something along the lines of, “I don’t have anyone to share a phone with…unless maybe you might be interested,” and then going on from there.Either way, it was a missed opportunity to mess with some anonymous schlub who’s stuck with a shitty job.Speaking of jobs, shitty or otherwise, and in this case “otherwise,” I’m officially off of my actual vacation time and back onto my regular time off, with Thursday’s return to work fast-approaching.It’s going to be a boring weekend, as this time around Scott is off, though unlike some people he actually has plans for his vacation (trip to Disneyworld with the wife and kids).He’s off the following weekend as well, so it’ll have been like a month since we last saw each other by the time we’re both back on the desk.(Assuming we ever are: layoffs still loom on the horizon)I still have three weeks’ of vacation remaining and I have to used at least two or them or else lose them, as I can only roll over one week to next year.Not sure when or how I’m going to use them. I might just take a day here and there. Like take every Thursday off or something. We’ll see, I guess.In any case, any time I do take off is likely to be put to even less exciting use than this time off, as I’m unlikely to do anything like buy a bed or a vacuum the way I did during this non-stop thrill ride of a vacation.*Sigh*